


Bragging Rights

by cerie



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-17
Updated: 2013-02-17
Packaged: 2017-11-29 15:36:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/688587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerie/pseuds/cerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He has them sent to the office.  He knows damn well that the point of Valentine’s Day is for women to be able to show off that their boyfriends are better than all the other boyfriends and he wants MacKenzie to have the biggest, most beautiful arrangement in the whole fucking office.  He wants her to be stunned and feel special. He wants...he has no fucking idea what he wants and maybe that’s why he’s sent her flowers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bragging Rights

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Callie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callie/gifts).



> Set post-season one. Will sends MacKenzie flowers on Valentine's Day. Written for [Callie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Callie).

Will actually thinks Valentine’s Day is the stupidest fucking holiday on the planet but there’s a perverse part of him that really, honestly wants to send MacKenzie something just to see how she’ll react. Habib would say this is not healthy behavior and he’d file it away with other brilliant stunts he’s pulled over the last two years, including buying a ring from Tiffany and giving up three million dollars just to fire her but Will actually doesn’t give a shit.

He’s allowed, on this holiday arbitrarily created by greeting card companies to make men and women feel like failures if they haven’t somehow achieved connubial bliss, to send his ex-girlfriend the biggest, most obnoxious floral arrangement that he can find solely to see how she’ll react to it.

That firmly in his mind, he starts browsing online for exactly what he wants. He knows he’s going to have to call up a florist and while a normal person knows that ordering something at, oh, 4:30 PM on Valentine’s Day is impossible a normal person doesn’t have the money and clout of Will McAvoy. He knows he can snap his fingers and have two dozen roses just like that and he also knows that if he gets it in his head to take a woman out tonight, every restaurant in Manhattan will roll out the red carpet for him. He doesn’t normally take advantage of it but today, he just might.

He decides that roses are too cliche and while he’s comfortable with being classic and sophisticated he thinks sending roses on Valentine’s Day is just lazy and that’s not who he is. When he was with MacKenzie, he used to make a point of giving her thoughtful, if ostentatious and overpriced, presents to show just how much he cared about her. He regularly made trips to Tiffany and Cartier to buy her jewelry and dropped thousands on vacations and going to shows and to dinner. He bought her a one of a kind Alexander McQueen gown at New York Fashion Week just because MacKenzie liked the color and he liked the thought of her legs in it.

Now he’s pretty sure he can’t buy her a falafel without having it checked for poison but that’s neither here nor there. They’ve made progress over the last two years and have segued into a genuine friendship that Will isn’t sure was ever there even before The Thing That Happened. He and MacKenzie had always just been an item and had never really spent time together outside of that. Now they’ve gotten a chance.

He decides on orchids. They’re expensive, hard to find and he’s pretty damn sure that none of the other schmucks she’s gone out with in the last five years have had the brains to send her something other than roses. He’s pretty sure Brian never sent her flowers at all and while this shouldn’t be a motivating factor for him buying a present for _MacKenzie_ , Will isn’t so deluded as to think it doesn’t play a part.

He has them sent to the office. He knows damn well that the point of Valentine’s Day is for women to be able to show off that their boyfriends are better than all the other boyfriends and he wants MacKenzie to have the biggest, most beautiful arrangement in the whole fucking office. He wants her to be stunned and feel special. He wants...he has no fucking idea what he wants and maybe that’s why he’s sent her flowers.

He’s a little forceful on the phone with the florist and tells them they better figure it out and 45 minutes later he guesses they have because he hears a high-pitched squeal from MacKenzie and everyone else oohing and aahing over the arrangement. Will ducks his head out the door of his office under the auspices of wondering what the fuck is going on and allows himself a smug smile when he sees how happy MacKenzie looks. Happy is a damn good look on her, actually, because her cheeks are flushed and her eyes crinkle a bit at the corner and her smile is so wide that she could be doing Colgate ads. He tries to tamp down the swell of feeling he gets seeing her that way and calls out, gruffly, that everyone needs to fucking get back to work because they’ve got news to cover. The crowd disperses and everything quiets down even if MacKenzie looks (and sounds - he’s got her in his ear tonight and it’s hard to concentrate) a little dreamy.

Afterward, MacKenzie lets everyone out a bit early considering it’s Valentine’s and most people have some kind of plans and the newsroom is a ghost town. It’s just him and MacKenzie and Maggie, who clears out and heads up to Don’s office to wait for him to be done with Elliot’s show. For all she can be clueless, occasionally Maggie gets it.

When he draws close to MacKenzie, he says hello in order to keep from startling her. She’s been a little jumpy ever since she came back from Afghanistan and he doesn’t like knowing that he’s part of the reason she went over there and part of the reason she was there for so fucking long. He poisoned her for the other networks and she couldn’t get work even though she’s brilliant and more than capable at her job. He feels like, in a way, he owes it to her to give her a little stability for a while. Sometimes he’s better at it than others.

There’s snow coming down, thick, and Will’s pretty sure they’re all going to be snowed in come morning. It’s less of an issue for him because Lonny drives a goddamn tank and he lives in a swank enough place that they pay people who pay people who shovel the snow but he guesses some of the rest of their staff might have a little trouble getting in. He’s run a show on a skeleton crew before, though, and he knows his staff is dedicated enough to do their damndest to get in. It’s loyalty and Will knows it has very little to do with him and very much to do with MacKenzie. She inspires...well. She inspires them to be better.

He stands at the window and watches the snow for a little while without saying anything when MacKenzie reaches out and tangles her fingers with his and squeezes. It’s not the reaction he’s expecting and he’s really fucking glad nobody’s around because there’s no way he can hide the expression of shock (and love - let’s be honest) on his face. He squeezes back.

“Thank you for the flowers. They were lovely.”

Will is perfectly aware of the fact that he didn’t put his name on the card but he guesses that right now it doesn’t fucking matter.


End file.
